It’s official, Sony has signed the binding agreement presented by Microsoft to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation following the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard.
This news comes from CharlieIntel and The Verge, who reposted the announcement made by Phil Spencer on Twitter, that the two tech giants have agreed to a binding contract, allowing Call of Duty to remain on PlayStation, to which Spencer says,
We look forward to a future where players globally have more choice to play their favorite games.
Microsoft’s Brad Smith also tweeted out, responding to Phil Spencer saying, “From Day One of this acquisition, we’ve been committed to addressing the concerns of regulators, platform and game developers, and consumers. Even after we cross the finish line for this deal’s approval, we will remain focused on ensuring that Call of Duty remains available on more platforms and for more consumers than ever before.”
Although, this announcement doesn’t mention any time frame of how long this agreement will last, but according to The Verge, “Kari Perez, who is the head of global communications at Xbox, confirmed to The Verge that the deal is only for 10 years and is only for Call of Duty.” This is similar to the other deal made between Microsoft and Nintendo, but not between Nvidia and other cloud services to bring Activison titles to other services.
This isn’t the only deal that Microsoft tried to stike to Sony over the fate of Activision titles. Sony has avoided signing Call of Duty deals with Microsoft, fearing that Microsoft would make the popular game franchise exclusive or even sabatoge the PlaySation version, thus filing to regulators.
From the beginning of the FTC v. Microsoft hearings, The Verge explains that Microsoft and Xbox always maintained their statement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation, with the arguement that pulling the game won’t make financial sense, and it doesn’t, since Call of Duty titles are among the highest selling games of each year and the franchise as whole is the highest.
After 18 months of offers and counter offers, this marks the end of the the year long battle between the two gaming giants. Now, lets hope this agreement follows with conclusion of the Activision-Blizzard deal.